


for all the ghosts that are never gonna catch me

by skyphlox



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dissociation, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Introspection, Klaus Hargreeves-centric, Murder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Smoking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Vietnam War, hurt with the tiniest amount of comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:06:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25835461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyphlox/pseuds/skyphlox
Summary: The first time Klaus killed someone wasn't with the Academy.
Relationships: Klaus Hargreeves & Ben Hargreeves (minor), Klaus Hargreeves/Dave Katz
Comments: 7
Kudos: 80





	1. in the middle of a gunfight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i dedicate this to my friend al who is the only reason this thing ever got finished and posted, thanks bro <3  
> title of the fic is from The Ghost of You and the chapter title is from You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison, both are very sexy songs by My Chemical Romance

The thing is, Klaus had never killed anyone before Vietnam. 

Not for lack of opportunity, either. The Umbrella Academy as they originally were had no problem with murder if it got the job done. Good ol’ Reggie Hargreeves actively encouraged it in them way before they were old enough to know what they were doing. Did his best to make them a more lethal fighting force in every training session. And it showed. 

A twelve year old Luther had no difficulties snapping necks and caving chests in and throwing men off of high places. Diego could sever a man’s arteries and bleed the life out of him just as easily as he could rip open the canvas head of a test dummy and let the sand spill out. Allison repeated back lines Reginald taught her easily, _I heard a rumor you killed your friend, I heard a rumor you jumped out that window, I heard a rumor you shot yourself in the head_. And little Five was always a quick study with anatomy, memorizing all the best spots to target to make a body stop moving. Poor Ben was the deadliest of all with the monster under his skin, emerging from most missions doused in blood and bits of bone and entrails. Klaus would always feel bad for him and try to help him clean off on the way home. He would take the seat next to him and attack his bloody face with baby wipes when Ben couldn’t bring himself to do much of anything but sit silently with unseeing eyes pointed straight ahead. 

Klaus, though. He was never all that useful during missions- reluctant to throw punches or use a weapon, more liable to start conversations with the enemy than hit them, later on unlikely to be sober enough to try. He usually was relegated to the lookout, the scout, the spy, the diplomat if the situation called for it. Reginald was always disappointed in his power’s lack of reach. He always wanted Klaus to move from simply passively perceiving the ghosts to controlling them, to making them fight or kill for him.

Even if Klaus had known how to do that, he wouldn’t have wanted to. He didn’t totally understand what happened to Ben after missions, how he would shut down and go all soft and pliant with his eyes unfocused. But Klaus did know he didn’t want it to happen to himself. And so he fought his father’s training at every turn.

Reginald kept trying, fruitlessly, to make Klaus into a useful fighter. Eventually stopped forcing him into the mausoleum, dismissing him as a lost cause. Meanwhile his siblings slowly started to understand what they were doing, and the academy’s numbers dwindled from six to five to four. When he left home he stopped thinking about his dad forcing him to get blood on his hands. There were other things to worry about then, like looking for places to sleep, for things to pawn to get more cash, for food and clothes and drugs. Despite his high-risk lifestyle he didn’t worry about having to kill anyone. He was pretty and charming and fast enough to escape if he pissed the wrong person off. After a while he simply put the Academy out of his mind, far away where he never had to think about it. 

Roughly twelve years and six months later, and also fifty years and two months earlier, crouched behind some bush cover and clutching his M16, recoil knocks against his bicep and he watches a bullet rip through the face of a VC soldier. He can see the exact second the ghost pries away from the man’s body, looking more disoriented than anything. Something in Klaus’ stomach goes cold. He has only a few seconds to register that he’s just killed a man. Severed his connection to the world, split his soul from his body. Snuffed out his lights forever. There’s a lot of Vietnamese yelling and someone shouts ‘Fall back!’ and shots are ringing out all around them. The man beside him falls and something warm and sticky sprays across Klaus’ arm and the side of his cheek. In an absurd moment of clarity he pictures his fourteen year old self wiping bloody smears off Ben’s face. 

The next thing he knows, he’s back at their makeshift camp puking his guts out behind a tent. It appears to be just before nightfall, which is alarming since it was still daylight when the battle started. Dave is standing behind him, hand heavy on Klaus’ shoulder. 

When he’s done Klaus rubs his hands over his face and then looks down at them, grimacing at the red-brown blood crumbling off his fingers. He runs a hand through his hair and part of it is stiff and crunches in his hand. Dave winces. Klaus turns around and stares at him for a second and cannot help but picture Dave’s body on the ground, bullet hole marring his face and his spirit torn from his body. He feels another wave of nausea hit and stifles the urge to start throwing up again. Absently he wonders where Ben is, as Klaus hasn’t seen him today since before the shooting started. He and Dave share a silent conversation. 

_What happened?,_ Dave’s face seems to ask. He still hasn’t taken his hand off Klaus’ shoulder. 

Klaus shakes his head. _Not now._

Dave’s mouth twists, eyes discerning. _You sure?_

Klaus looks away, and then glances down at his feet. _Drop it._

His boots are muddy and might also have blood on them, he can’t tell in the dark. His skin crawls and he suppresses a shiver even though it’s hot as shit in the jungle. Fuck, he needs a drink as soon as possible. Adrenaline will kill a high faster than anything. The hazy disoriented feeling in his head has nothing to do with any substance. Hopefully the guy he killed ( _the guy he killed,_ something inside him hisses, and it feels like acid etching lines inside his skull) didn’t see him and decide to follow his killer around in the afterlife.

“C’mon, let’s get you cleaned up.” Dave says softly, moving a hand gently to the middle of his back and leading him back around the tent. 

Klaus, for once, has nothing to say.


	2. lit cigarette

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is from Lit Cigarette by Sarah and the Safe Word which is another sexy song you should listen to

He finds Ben hovering around his cot in the squad tent after doing his best to get the blood out of his hair. Ben tries to talk to him but Klaus can’t, he _can’t_. He gives Ben a thin-lipped smile that comes out as more of a grimace and sits down hard. He starts digging through his things for weed or cigarettes or pills or _something_ because his head is killing him and he can see out of the corner of his eye at least three guys in black VC uniforms dripping blood that never seems to actually hit the dirt below them. His search through his rucksack recovers a pilfered bottle of pills and three packs of cigs. He snags one pack and shoves the pills back in the bag because they take too damn long to kick in and he needs something immediate. He ambles back out of the tent, letting Ben’s protests fade into faint buzzing in his ears. He plants his ass in the dirt next to Dave, who’s smoking and keeping watch with his rifle in his lap. Dave offers him the cigarette. Klaus puts his own away and takes a puff. They pass it back and forth and neither of them says anything. Klaus’ head throbs.

In the most desperate of attempts to stave off thinking about the events of the day, he studies Dave’s face. It's kind of hard to see when the only light is coming from inside the tent and the glow at the end of his lit cigarette, but Klaus doesn’t mind. He thinks he must know every angle of Dave's face by now. Convinces himself it’s because of spending so much time together and not because sometimes he sees it and just wants to reach out and touch. Wonders why it took falling into a warzone to find someone that understood him so quickly and so completely. Three months is a lot of downtime to get to know someone. Even more to someone like Klaus, who before he got dropped here was accustomed to people coming and going from his life (other than his siblings. Ben‘s exasperated voice and Allison’s face on billboards and Luther in a spacesuit on TV and Vanya’s portrait in bookshop windows-). People come, people go. People leave, people come back, they go to rehab, they swear they’re gonna get clean this time, they get kicked out by their families, they OD, they’re hospitalized, they get out, they get found laying on their back on the side of the road-

That kind of life is stressful enough for anyone to want to keep friendships surface level, even people who can’t see the strung-out, wild eyed, wailing spirits of acquaintances who’ve died on the street. If he closes his eyes he can see the bodies. a blond-haired guy in a dirty gray hoodie, one sleeve rolled up with bruises on the crook of his arm. A skinny black girl with bags under her eyes and her hair splayed out on the concrete under her. A dark-skinned guy in a black uniform, bloody and dripping on the side of his face where one eye should be-

Klaus coughs on smoke and thumps himself in the chest. Dave frowns at him but stays silent, for which Klaus is grateful for about a second before he starts replaying the moment in his head. He resists the urge to start clawing at his own skin when he sees the man’s ghost wrench itself out of the body again. Thinks about his own head smacking against the dirt of the jungle and his blood spilling over the side of his face. How it would feel, warm and wet and tasting sharp when it dribbles out of his mouth. Wonders how hard it will be to pry his ghost from his body. Thinks about what he saw, the VC soldier peeling away from himself slowly and then all at once. Like sawing away at a rope, watching all the individual threads fray and split until the whole thing snaps. A lot of things are like that, he thinks. He imagines the sensation of pulling away from his body. Would it hurt, like being amputated from his own skin? Or would it feel freeing, like escaping the mausoleum to the bright green expanse of the cemetery?

He takes the last drag from the cig and crushes it under his boot. Dave reaches out, slowly, and rests a hand on Klaus’ arm. Squeezes, lightly, then lets go. He puts his Hello hand on the ground between them, palm up. An acknowledgement. Ben comes into focus in the corner of his eye, expression worried but softening. He still can’t bring himself to say anything. 

His hands are cold. It’s hot and sticky in A Shau, he notes without really thinking about it.

He lights up another cigarette.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the first fic i've actually posted on ao3 and i know it's short but if you enjoyed and/or have any critiques please leave a comment !! thank you for reading and giving me validation <3


End file.
